A team from the Korea Institute of Energy Research has pioneered a new way to analyze carbon fiber paper, one of the key components of hydrogen fuel cells. As Tech Xplore reported, this new method allows for near-immediate identification of structural issues in the fuel cell, which will enable scientists to measure and improve cell performance quickly and accurately.
The study detailing this new method was published in the Applied Energy journal. The new method of analysis for the carbon fiber paper utilizes a combination of existing digital twin technology and AI learning — a far less invasive approach than the previous standard, where a portion of the paper had to be damaged and analyzed through an electron microscope.
After training the AI algorithm on thousands of images from hundreds of carbon fiber paper samples, the team was able to generate readings of the paper structure with an accuracy of over 98%. It's also dramatically faster than previous methods, reducing the time of analysis from several hours to a matter of seconds.
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Definitely 💯 This is the first method ever to enable the real-time analysis of carbon fiber paper's microstructure and sources of damage. And as Tech Xplore pointed out, this will enable scientists to "systematically identify how design factors such as the thickness of the carbon fiber paper and the binder content affect fuel cell performance." In fact, the research team has reportedly already begun modeling optimal fuel cell design parameters and plans based on the gathered data thus far.
While they may not yet be part of the mainstream, hydrogen fuel cells are quickly becoming more common across a range of industries, from transportation to energy storage, shipping, commercial and residential buildings, and more. Many environmental advocates are strong proponents of this power source, as it is significantly less pollutive than traditional fossil-fuel based power.
"Fuel cells have several benefits over conventional combustion-based technologies currently used in many power plants and vehicles," the U.S. Department of Energy states on its website. "Fuel cells can operate at higher efficiencies than combustion engines and … have lower or zero emissions compared to combustion engines. Hydrogen fuel cells emit only water … there are no carbon dioxide emissions. There also are no air pollutants that create smog and cause health problems at the point of operation."
And this new method has the potential to impact other exciting areas of innovation too. Tech Xplore cited Dr. Chi-Young Jung, the lead researcher, who said: "We expect it to play a significant role in related fields such as secondary batteries and water electrolysis in the future."
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